Ex-Convicts Learn To Become Playwrights
Story by Dean Reynolds
About 650,000 people are released from U.S. prisons each year. What can be done to help them make the most of their freedom?
At the South Bend Civic Theatre in Indiana, even the most hardened ex-prisoners are being taught to write their own second act.
“As I begin to get closer and I begin to see the finish line, then it’s like, okay. How am I going to reintroduce myself to society? To the community? Because for the last 26 years, this is what they’ve known me as. But that’s not who I am.”
Films Examine Hoosier Urban and Rural Identities
In 2019, five award-winning Indiana filmmakers were chosen by Indiana Humanities to create short documentaries examining the ways Hoosiers experience urban and rural identities today. The films—about a dance instructor in Gary dealing with disinvestment in arts education, about a rural community newspaper in Wayne County filling the gap caused by media consolidation, about a southern Indiana composting business that hires the formerly incarcerated to transform the land and their lives—complicate our ideas about who lives in Indiana and what they’re up to.
Featured filmmakers include Dan Rybicky and Ryan Gleeson of Chicago’s Kartemquin Films, Emmy nominee Pat Wisniewski and Tom Desch, Bloomington-based duo Mitch Teplitsky and Gabriel Lantz, and Chad Perdue.
Watch the trailer.
Learn more about the films and RSVP for one of 10 stops around the state.
The importance of the arts
Story by Jay H. Dick
Do you use the arts and culture to help solve the issues list running through your head in the wee hours of the morning? Probably not, but that is starting to change as leaders are understanding the value that the arts and culture bring to the community.
When talking about the arts, what comes to mind? I would hazard to say that you are thinking about live theater, fine art galleries, the ballet, or opera. In other words, “high arts,†perhaps art for the elite, city/urban-centric arts, etc. But the arts are so much more than this, and they are actively working each day in your community, improving the livability and economy of your area. Read the full story.
A few things you can do…
- Participate in the Creative Community Pathway (LOI due Feb 27)
- Apply for an Arts Project Support grant (deadline March 5)
- Apply for the Quick Impact Placebased Grant (deadline March 6)
- Apply for the Creative Counties Placemaking Challenge (deadline March 13)
- Watch this video of our top three grant writing tips
- Apply for the CreatINg Places place-based crowdfunding program (applications accepted until all funds have been disbursed)
- Participate in this Historical Perceptions of Disability training (online and FREE)
- Find out where you are in your equity journey
- Take this organizational self-assessment about race
- Submit a presentation proposal for a 2020 VSA session (deadline May 15)
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Warm wishes, Jasmine Bejar |
